17th Century Joint Stool

I was inspired on a trip to Plymouth, MA when we visited Plymouth Plantation, a 17th century re-creation of the original settlement. Everything that exists here is done in the style of the late 1600’s using tools and craftsmanship of the period. Peter Follansbee is the joyner in the community and builds furniture from riven (split) log sections to create boards to build furniture from.

I have been working hard to improve my hand tool skills and saw an opportunity for a project at home. Peter Follansbee and Jennie Anderson wrote a book on building a joint stool from a tree. After purchasing the book, I began the process of preparing to build the stool. fortunately, a large oak was taken dow just up the street from where I live. I contacted the owner and procured a piece of the tree 36” long and 33” in diameter.

This was a heavy chunk of wood and gave me a good work-out to split and rive out the necessary sized pieces. Riving wood splits it radially and provides the best ray-fleck to be found in quarter saw wood. Next came further chopping and splitting to eliminate the sap wood and the juvenile wood at the center of the tree. Now it was time for my next work-out, planing the slabs and making boards. This took a couple of days. I stickered the boards and gave them about four to five weeks to dry a bit. Ideally, I would have access to a pole lathe to turn the legs, but I do have an old Delta lathe and compromised here to turn the legs. The rest of the project was done by hand. The stool has mortise and tenon joints and does not use glue to hold it together, rather,it is pegged using the draw bore technique which did an excellent job of pulling all the joints tight.

This was a very rewarding project that challenged me on several fronts. I learned much and I am sure my new skills will inform my work on future projects.

Work the wood down with a wooden plane rather than using an iron one of you can. Wet wood and iron do not go together well. I tried to use my #7 as a fore plane. It did not slide well and jammed with shavings. I had rehabilitated and old wooden fore plane which worked far better. The curved blade shave off 1/16” shavings with ease. I then flattened the surfaces with another old transition plane (wood base, iron top) and stickered the slabs to dry for a while.

Ok, thanks for the information Bill. I currently do not have a wooden plane. I only have a couple old iron ones. I did plan to let the slabs dry first before I started to plane them. Do you see any issue with letting them dry first? I have never done anything like this and any information would be great.

In the picture you can see the iron wood stove I am getting ready to place them under. I left them there for 30 minutes before I started to smell them from an entire floor away. Nasty smell. I took them outside. Now they are in my shop that is probably at 36F. Going to be a slow drying process. I have been thinking about trying to make a small wood drying kiln. Just for fun.

Don’t rush trying to dry the wood, it’s going to take some time so be patient. Give it at least four to six months before you do much with it. Basically you want to work at green and get it together or wait until it is dry. After you get down to about six to eight percent moisture content, it will be ready.

The rule for air drying wood is one year for each inch of thickness. If it is near a heat source small pieces will dry quicker.

I got a chance to play out in the garage today. I only have two old planes. So I used the longest one I had. I had to sharpen the blade to finally get it to cut with ease. I don’t use them much. I am going to after today’s experience. I got one of the slabs and started working it down. The slab in my picture above. I used a draw knife on the edges, along with an ax. I got one side flat enough to send it through my planer. This is the slab now.My work area.